Tuesday, May 15, 2007

A Wish and A Prayer

My Mama never cleans the house,she lets the dirt pile high.The cockroaches and other bugsare always crawling by.The refrigerator is emptyand the bread is hard as stone,and sometimes when I’m hungryI can hear my belly groan.Still Mama says that tomorrowshe will clean and cook, but you see,I know that’s just another liecause she always lies to me.She spends her check on somethingthat this friend of hers calls crack,and when she’s high, she swears at meand hits me in the back.Her fists are hard, but her words hurt morecause I’m just a little kid,who wishes she’d get better and dothe things that we once did,like taking walks on Sundays,or going to the ice cream store,or visiting with Grandma,but we don’t do those no more.When I grow up and have a kidI won’t do things like drugs.I’ll get a job and hug my child,and our house will not have bugs!But until that time I’ll say my prayersand hope that God hears me,cause I know that he must understandthis thing called poverty…

About Me

Susan's poems have been published at
http://www.kotapress.com/
http://www.ladybugbooks.com
Another Rainy Day was published by Philomel Books/Penguin Putnam Inc. in the children’s humorous poetry anthology, I Invited A Dragon to Dinner and Other Poems To Make You Laugh Out Loud. Patchwork Memories was published in the Mother’s Day Ideals, and in The Hawkeye Heritage Quilter’s Guild Newsletter of Burlington, IA. Her sonnet Fatal Hand was published in the 2000 Quarterly Journal of the Wisconsin Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Kelly Wallace of Ball State University used Susan’s poems Flight Plans and Trespasser in a Sexual Abuse Group as therapy hand-outs.
Susan's book, Gathering Pearls, A Treasury of Inspirational Poetry, is available through Amazon and other book stores, or by contacting Susan.
Susan was invited to read her poem, I Am The Child at the 6th Annual Child Abuse Homicide Victims Candlelight Vigil in NC on Friday September 28th, 2001. That poem was also used in the Johnson County, North Carolina Child Abuse Prevention Task Force’s Blue Ribbon For Kids Campaign. Her poems about child abuse have been used in dozens of web sites for survivors.